Category Archives: rockets

MDRA October 2021

Posted on by tjkopena

Alice, Brett, and I went down to the Maryland Delaware Rocketry Association (MDRA) launch this past Sunday. She would like everyone to know that she TOLD me we would never see this Estes Delta Clipper again if we launched it (essentially minimum diameter two stage D12s), and she was RIGHT. This is another ~30-year old kit preserved in my mom & dad’s basement. Beautiful flight, did retrieve the booster, but the rest of it is presumed to be in orbit after nobody at the launch managed to keep eyes on the sustainer. Serious debate among our little flight crew regarding whether or not it should have been painted to make it easier to see, or if it wasn’t worth painting because we were almost certainly going to lose it anyway.

Video by Brett.

But do you know what Alice was sure would be really really fun? Tangling up all the micro-rockets with her new friend met at the launch while Dad was elsewhere and Brett was… instigating or encouraging or standing aside. Reports are inconsistent. Either way, again Alice was right. It was super fun to tangle up all the rockets.

ASP Aerobee 100 JR

Posted on by tjkopena

An ASP 29mm Aerobee 100 JR that I finished recently. Airframe is very very slightly tweaked from the kit, only visible change being that the conduits are cut differently. Graphics are all custom. “SPACECRAFT” is a made-up space company I’ve used on a couple models, a weak joke on the ultra generic names of many actual space companies. The other graphics are toward the premise that this rocket’s mission has been sponsored by a number of much more famous companies.

Hit a quarter mile on an F motor in its first three launches on Saturday and came back to land within 100ft of the launch pad each time. That’s much lower than ASP’s published apogee estimates, but it’s carrying extra weight and the finishing certainly isn’t perfectly smooth. The paint and vinyl graphics aren’t too bad weight-wise, it came in about 9oz with the published target being 9.6oz. But in these flights it was also carrying an altimeter, chute release, and buzzer. Jolly Logic chute release just barely fits smoothly in the 1.9″ tube with an 18″ parachute if you fold the latter long and just thick enough to put tension on the band, and worked fantastically.

Waiting for the corn to get harvested at PARA520’s usual launch site to try it with a G.

Update: Figured out that much of the discrepancy between achieved and projected altitude is simply wind. With no wind it’ll get above 3k on a G, right on the estimates.

Bumblebee

Posted on by tjkopena

Mike S from PARA surprised Alice & I with this absolutely gorgeous 3x upscale of R3 at the most recent launch meet. I can’t understate how great this model looks and how much it meant that he built it. We didn’t want to take too many risks with the corn, but it had an excellent debut flight on a B6-2.

R3 at BT60 size.

Takeoff! (photo by Tanya M)